Entries tagged with anime

Mark and I watched thirteen episodes of Baccano! over the past three days.

We're going to stop there. Episode 13 neatly wraps everything up that needs wrapping up. There are three more episodes, but they were direct-to-DVD releases, and a perusal of Wikipedia indicates that none of it is must-see, just extra end-tying-up.

I suspect that folks who have seen it already are going "you liked Baccano!? But it's hideously and often grotesquely violent." It is. It is not, however, gratuitously violent; every piece is plot-related, and that's the important part for me. (It is worth noting that immediately before watching the first episode of Baccano!, I watched seven minutes of the first episode of Angel Beats and turned it off for gratuitous violence.)

Baccano! -- immortal alchemists from the 18th century are living in the 1930s as gangsters. The story is told from multiple perspectives and out of order. It's kind of like watching a LARP being told on TV. It's lusciously beautiful; the artists paid attention to detail. And the story is very well-written.

I will admit to being delighted with Firo, who is, as the introduction says, "main-character-ish" (though I'll note that you don't even see him for a good third of the episodes). But the cast is huge, interesting, and hugely varied, and I'm glad they put the effort of naming most of the important people in the intro sequence, because the first few episodes are pretty confusing as you're trying to figure out who everyone is.

In short: I recommend it, with the caveat that it definitely *deserves* the MA rating on Netflix.